Witch and Wizard_ The Fire - James Patterson [42]
“Really?” I gawk at him, shocked, even though I imagined him saying those very words.
He touches my shoulder, and I flinch. I’m still not convinced this sick man isn’t playing a trick on me. “I urge you to consider it. Come, look at them.” He waves his hand across the window, and I can see the kids below. They’re viciously beating a dummy with sticks, and stuffing erupts from its torso. I shudder. “Can’t you see yourself among them?” He grins eerily. “Guiding them?”
“Well, I don’t know, sir,” I say, having a little fun. “I’m not convinced the Youth Troop is the best place for my specific talents.”
“Please!” His bark makes me jump. The general is grasping frantically at my arms, shaking me, his voice verging on madness. And then he’s shaking so hard I feel like my head might snap.
Refocus, Wisty! I remind myself. I suddenly realize that I might accidentally take this newfound power to places I hardly understand or can control.
“You need only name your price. I’ll … I’ll arrange for extra chocolate rations!” he yells, his eyes crazed with desperation.
I immediately start to salivate, remembering that divine, otherworldly chocolate from our days at the Brave New World Center, but then catch myself when I remember how freaking addicting the stuff was and how the N.O. used it for brain control. To extract all energy and euphoria from young minds.
It almost took me to the dark side.
“That won’t be necessary, General. But I suppose I’ll join anyway,” I concede, wrenching myself from his grip as he nods, his mustache bobbing. “But only because you said please.”
Chapter 45
Wisty
IF THERE’S ONE thing Youth Troops love, it’s marching.
With my crisp white-and-red New Order uniform and my hair in two tight braids, I practice legs up, arms stiff, eyes dead, drill after drill after drill.
“Now,” a horse-faced older boy barks after we’ve been at it for three hours, “we will review maneuvers to capture young Resisters.” He goes down the line with a box, passing out equipment, but I can’t make out what it is yet.
“Remember,” he says, “the enemy will swerve, dodge, even beg. To eliminate this threat, place the wire against the neck and press the button.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but right then a door in one of the buildings opens up and dozens of puppies come bounding out of it, tongues waving in the air. I look around, and none of my Youth Troop peers even cracks a smile. They look like they’re facing down a plague of locusts.
I’m uneasy about what all of this means — the N.O. has a history of using dogs as killer weapons — but I have a serious soft spot for all canines, and I can’t help crouching down to pet one. The dog goes crazy, licking my hands and face, its little tail wagging a mile a minute.
And then, zap! The little dog collapses to the ground, seizing. What the —?
One of my N.O. comrades, a small pigtailed girl with missing front teeth, stands over him with some sort of stun-gun apparatus, grinning like a banshee, and then takes off for her next victim.
I look around and watch the other dogs yelping as the brainwashed kids gleefully stun them, and I feel the familiar heat building in my body, the anger reaching a boil. But now is not the time to flame out. I’m in the middle of a heavily guarded N.O. facility, and if I’m lucky, I just might get my chance to see The One. But trying not to let my rage get the best of me is literally making smoke come out of my ears.
Stop, Wisty. Slow down. Pause. I snap my fingers as if to break my swelling energy, to stop the eruption of flame, and suddenly —
Everyone stops moving. Everyone but me.
The puppies run around, barking happily again, but the sour-faced New Order Youth have all become statues with stun guns raised in midair, their faces petrified in expressions of evil glee.
Okay! Wasn’t expecting that, but it’ll work.
This is the perfect opportunity to take a look around the complex for The One. The last time I saw him,